Language of the Dogs
by miss selah
Summary: When the Moon calls, you dance. It doesn't matter who your partner is.
1. Canine

* * *

_ Canine_

* * *

He is the only child for now, the last of the litter, the runt that actually survived by finding nurtrients that didn't come from his mother's tit. If he hadn't, then he would be dead like the rest of his brothers and sisters that he doesn't remember having, because Mother _really _didn't want to have pups. But Father was Alpha, so Father was God, and whatever Father said was law.

Even Mother accepted that.

Which was why, when the tiny white runt lay in a circle of his sibling's limp bodies, Father smiled and christened him _Sesshoumaru, _and he forbid Mother from ever harming him. Mother, the bitch, stretched out on her stomach like the dog she was and leaned up, licking his chin, begging for him to love her. Father scowled, and took the pup, and Mother's dog wanted to die, because FatherAlphaGod doesn't love her anymore. Perhaps he never did.

Sesshoumaru is stumbling on paws that are too large for him, wondering why Father doesn't want him to keep all of his lovely white fur. It's cold in this naked body, even with the skins of his kills covering him. His fur is gone off of everywhere but his scalp, and he whimpers as he fights to stay in this form that Alpha Father God has picked out for him.

It's hard. He's trying.

Sesshoumaru is fighting, fighting, fighting, just like he was born fighting. He uses a bit of metal, a foreign and akward object that is an extension of an equally foreign and akward limb.

His enemy's aren't pups, they are men just like he is pretending to be. They are huge and bulking and Sesshoumaru is still just a runt that wants to crawl back inside of his dog body, his natural body, and slink away, belly on the ground, and find a place to bed down until everyone else is done picking their spots and he can just be Omega.

He tells this to Father in the language of the Dogs, his eyes darting about, looking everywhere but directly at him, his human shoulders and human arms relaxed, and he wishes not for the first time that he had a tail, because it is so much easier to grovel when you have four paws.

Father does not take the news well.

He reaches out to attack Sesshoumaru, not bothering to use his full strength, just swiping a hand at him, letting a little bit of dog seep in to him, causing his nails to grow and slash Sesshoumaru's cheek open in three smooth lines. Sesshoumaru whimpers and drops, showing his belly, but it is not the way that humans talk and so Sesshoumaru earns himself a kick in the gut.

He is learning the way of humans. Or at least, he's trying.

At night Father takes leave of him, and Sesshoumaru yips with joy as he transforms, letting his tight flesh melt in to fur. His bones rearrange himself, and he feels his vertebrae unstacking as he makes the change from Homo Sapien to Canine, and revels in every painful moment of it.

Sesshoumaru loses his name as he shifts, and in those vulnerable, painful moments, he is torn between 'I should be' and 'I am.' Sesshoumaru wonders, in his human body, if he is doing a good enough job. Why am I here? Where am I going? Who am I going to be? The dog knew no such questions – the dog knows that pleasing Father is first, keeping himself alive is second. The dog doesn't know about tomorrow, because the dog lives in the light of the moon, racing through the trees when no one is watching.

When the shift is complete, he runs.

The runt is not a runt anymore, but a dog larger than any wolf could ever dream of being. He has almost grown in to his paws, which he pads along on as he runs. Although he could never dream of being as large as his Father, because Mother was such a tiny thing and he looked so much like her that it was entirely possible that Father wasn't his father at all. For the dog though, that didn't matter – Father had taken him in. Father had saved him from Mother. Father was Alpha, so Father was God, and it doesn't even occur to the dog that they should be related. The heavy thumps are muffled by the thick bottoms of his feet, and he races between the trees and shafts of moonlight. He races and dreams.

There is something missing, he knows, even if he doesn't know exactly what it is. He knows that when he runs, he shouldn't be running alone. He knows that there should be more dogs here, and that they should be pressed shoulder to shoulder, haunch to haunch, and they should skim the forest floor as one being.

Pack. Not just Dog.

He reaches the apex of the tallest hill in his territory – he knew it was his, and no one else was allowed to come here – and stops, finally, to stare at the moon.

It matches his, a crescent at it's crest, the light reflecting off the sun so brightly that the dog has to avert his eyes. It is beautiful, hovering in the sky, and the dog wishes that he could leap up and dance on it's smooth surface as well.

Instead, on the apex of the hill, he tilts his head so that the moon can see his throat and sings. If the dog was Sesshoumaru, he would have wondered why it felt so wrong that he was singing alone – why his voice was the only one crying to the moon. But when Sesshoumaru is the dog, like he is now, he knows better than to wonder about things like that. He knows it's wrong, that pack should be there to sing with him, but pack isn't there, and he is alone and therefore a rogue. He accepts it, even though he doesn't like it, because that's the way things are.

He trots to back to the citadel, wishing that there was pack here to be with him. Wishing that their fur would rub against his fur, and that they could all just be one dog. He slows now that he can see the citadel, because he knows that Sesshoumaru wont let him have free reign for a while yet, and the dog doesn't like the idea of being on a leash. His steps are painfully slow now, as he walks up the steps, and he stops, hackles raised, when he sees another dog.

She is white, just like him, and she has the same markings as he does. Mother, he knows. Pack. Whimpering, he drops to his stomach and crawls towards her, tongue out and tail whipping quickly.

Mother turns her head to the moon, and the dog recognizes the look of longing in them he has known. He calls to her, a yip, and licks her chin. He is telling her, in the language of the dogs, that he is pack, and that he wants to run. He is asking her, his Alpha, his Goddess, to run too.

Mother raises her hackles, offended that the runt has asked her to run with him, and shows him her back as she returns to the citadel, shifting from fur-coated dog to moon-clad human with little more than a thought.

She turns to him, glaring, and the dog resists the urge to give her his stomach.

"You are run by your emotions, Sesshoumaru." The dog knows this name. Father is God, and Mother is Goddess, but Sesshoumaru is Master. "You will never have your pack until you learn to control yourself."

The dog is confused, because he does what his instincts tell him to do. Right now, they are telling him to do whatever it is she wants.

He shifts back in to a human body, his vertebrae restacking themselves, his fur melting away in to flesh until he is crouched, dog-like and naked, on the steps of the Citadel.

"Yes Mother."

She leaves him, but not without one last, wistful look towards the moon. Sesshoumaru does the same, and because he is human right now, he wonders what it would be like to live there all alone, where no one would force him to be Alpha, where he could just be the dog and not Sesshoumaru, where he could shift and go in to the forest and never come back.

Lonely. His dog tells him. You would be lonely without pack.

Sesshoumaru wishes he knew what pack really was.


	2. Lupine

* * *

**LUPINE**

* * *

_The wolf is covered in black fur, running sleekly through the thick underbrush of the woods. She is far tinier than any wolf or dog that he has ever encountered, in this territory or any other. She is so tiny, in fact, that his initial impression of her is that she is a small breed of dog that he has never seen before. She is thin, and he knows that she must have not eaten in a least a few days; maybe a whole moon. Danity, she darts between he trees – his trees – and frolics. _

_His own prey, a stag, hears her coming and cocks his head up, ears swiveling to catch the noise. He hears her, and if the dog was Sesshoumaru, he would have let out a heavy sigh. No matter. The dog thinks that the wolf is far more interesting than the stag anyway. _

_She doesn't hear him as he stalks, doesn't sense him approaching her, body crouched low to the ground, death in his mind. It should be his first clue, if not her size, that she is not like other wolves, just as he is not like other dogs. She is playing like a puppy, jaws snapping a fire bugs, tail wagging with no pack insight. She doesn't realize that she is being stalked until he pounces, jaws open, at her. _

_She yips and squirms, sinewy muscles straining frantically as she tries her hardest to get away. The dog snaps at her, growling with his teeth at her throat, ready to rip out her jugular should she decide to get cocky and attack. _

_She doesn't smell like a wolf or a dog. The musky scent of the forest coats her, but flesh and fur are melded in to one, unfamiliar scent that the dog classifies as harmless. _

_The wolf, which has shown no previous survival instinct, wisely chooses to remain still. She leans up to him, licking at his chin. If they were human, she would be asking for his forgiveness. Since they were canine, it is a plead for her life, a recognition that he was alpha and she was nothing. _

_The dog, which has never previously had any pack, releases his hold on her neck and allows her to scamper out from underneath his body slowly, slowly, so that he can watch her move and so that the wolf knows that he has allowed her this freedom. _

_The wolf remains a distance away on her belly, tail swishing from side to side hopefully, her paws at her face and her haunches ready to leap. The dog, which has never spent any substantial amount of time with another dog, doesn't speak the language of the dogs particularly well, and only vaguely understands that she wants to play, to run run run with her Alpha. _

_The dog complies, taking one slow step after another, padding on silent paws towards her. They are nose-to-nose, sniffing, curious, and the dog pushes at her shoulder, urging her to run. _

_She runs and he chases, shoulder-to-shoulder, fur against fur, they are pack. _

_They are whole. _

* * *

Kagome wakes up in the morning in the den that she had chosen for herself, set far apart from the camp, cold and shivering and alone. She cries and holds her naked body to herself, trying to remember the night before. Trying to remember if she has done something horrible. Something unforgivable.

It is only the third moon since the attack. She had gone home on her own, to her own time, late in the night so that Inuyasha wouldn't bother to try and stop her. She knew it would have been fine – they were in the village, and demons didn't dare come too close now that there was a resident priestess. Besides, she was only going to slip away for a little while, and probably be back by morning. She hadn't expected any trouble on this side of the well from demons, and most certainly hadn't expected any problems on her side of time. After all, demons were all dead then.

She figured she would have been safe.

She had been wrong.

Quiet nearly dead wrong.

She digs around a bit, looking for the garments that she buried two days prior. She hadn't meant to change . . . the full moon wasn't for another week. She had taken Myouga's advice, though. Find a place, far away from anyone that you could hurt, and get ready. She had thought that she was, but she had also thought that maybe she could keep things under control.

It was just another thing that she is wrong about.

She wants to run, because the wolf can still taste blood in her throat, can still feel her muscles stretched out and running, can still smell musky fur that didn't smell familiar.

Kagome lifts her head to the wind, trying to place the familiar scent, and winces when she feels a sharp pain in her neck. Lifting a hand, she can feel the welts of teeth marks, and remembers that there had been a dog the color of the moon, and that they had ran, fur against fur, and they had sang for the moon together, hunted together, slept together.

A crunch of leaves behind her sent her whirling, calling on animal instincts that she hadn't possessed for more than a few months to defend herself. A dog with paws at least the size of her head sat there, staring at her with his head cocked to the side, telling her in the Language of the Dogs that he is confused. She knows that he can smell her, and that he can smell the wolf, and she knows that he is trying to figure out which is which. She does the same, and is shocked to realize that he, too, smells human, somewhere underneath the fur and fangs.

He turns away first, dismissing her. She smiles and accepts it – accepts him – gratefully.

He is pack. That's all she needs to know.

* * *

_Blood moon dance run run run._

_The wolf approaches him on her belly with her kill in her jaws – a tiny fawn. He is Alpha, so he is God, and God comes first. Plus, the wolf isn't very hungry because the girl keeps them well fed, if not slightly underweight._

_The dog doesn't accept the gift gratefully, because to him it isn't a gift - it's a necessity and he eats his fill of fat and flesh and leave the sinewy muscle and bone for her to gnaw on. It is her punishment for killing an infant, when there is perfectly good stags out there that she could have taken down if she would have been only a bit more patient. She isn't alone anymore. She has him, and he is her Alpha, and he could have brought it down all by himself._

_She takes her punishment and runs at his flank with joy, because she loves him, because he is Alpha, and he is God._

_

* * *

_

Kagome wakes up curled around the dog, flesh and fur pressed against each other, seeking warmth even in the warm nights of the summer. She doesn't want to go back to that world, the world where she has responsibilities and tests and worries – she wants to go back in to the forest with him and run run run in the body of the wolf, because it is so much easier to be a wolf.

The dog wakes up and stares at her, and she wishes that she was a wolf so that she could have the right body parts to cower, the right muscles to grovel. She does alright, though, in the body of the human, and he licks her because he understands because he isn't a dog anymore than she's a wolf, and she knows it.

He transforms for her, fur shortening to flesh and Kagome lies naked in the arms of Sesshoumaru, crying in to his chest because she is nothing without him and her ragtag family that she had created for herself could never accept it.

Sesshoumaru, as uneasy in his human body as she is, tries to comfort her but ends up licking her chin because in the Language of the Dogs, he is saying _I love you. Everything will be alright_.

Kagome believes him, because even when she isn't wolf and he isn't dog, he is still Alpha and she is still nothing.

* * *

Flesh, fur, it makes no difference. She is more wolf than human now, and he has always been more than a dog or a man. Faces and names make no difference to the wolf, because he may be Sesshoumaru but he is Alpha first, dog second, and friend last.

Sesshoumaru doesn't exist to her, only to the human half.

* * *

She brings down her first kill this night, a great big stag with his help in catching, the dog is so proud of her that he leaves her the fattest bit he can find, burying it deep in the gut so that she will find it and think it's been a mistake.

Hunting is good – far better than it has been in a long time because the predators in the area know that there is a pack and have left, left them the good hunting by the spring. It is spring, and it is time to think of things other than just food and dancing.

His nose which should be white is covered in blood and as he watches her wolf down the food he has left her, he licks his chops and thinks of pups.

* * *

She is changing in more than just flesh and fur. She is becoming more dominant, and soon Inuyasha knows that she will either leave the group soon or take over the group that she had called pack by mistake more than once.

She is not his little omega anymore, and even his posturing doesn't get to her. She just sits or lies down where she is, crosses her arms and feigns indifference, looking everywhere but at him. She is telling him, in the Language of the Dogs, that he is still Alpha but if he insists on acting Omega, then perhaps they should change positions.

Inuyasha ignores her, too, and thinks about what he is going to do.

It's just that she's so much better at being an Alpha than he is.

* * *

_When Kagome becomes Wolf, the Dog the Alpha the God is not there to greet her like he normally is. She whimpers, fearing he has left her to be a lone wolf again, and she can't go back to that, not now that she knows what it's like to have a pack, not now that the hollow filling inside of her has finally been filled._

_He comes to her with a boar much larger than either of them dragging behind him, and he stops, looking ashamed, and drops it. His shoulders hunch and he looks down, telling her in the Language of the Dogs that she is Alpha and she is Goddess and that he has brought this for her. He pushes the carcass with his nose, crawling on his belly, tailing wagging hopefully as he watches her sniff it warily._

_The wolf isn't used to being treated like the Alpha, because she is Omega and she knows her place. Still, she takes a bite of the toughest part – the leg – and chews through bristle and bone to get to the marrow and sinewy muscle._

_The dog, offended, whimpers._

_The wolf, apologetic, bites of the fattest piece she can find and wolfs it down before going in for another bite._

_And when they run that night, they dance, and the wolf doesn't think she knows the steps. But it's okay – the girl does._

_

* * *

_

It is getting easier and easier to become the wolf. The melting of flesh, the restructuring of bones, all the things she once found horrific and painful come easily to her now. She counts down from ten, and imagines _Sesshoumaru Dog Alpha God _as she changes, imagines him holding her as both a human and a dog, and imagines him running with her, sharing her joy her pain her everything.

If she doesn't think about it too hard, the change doesn't even really hurt anymore.

* * *

_The wolf doesn't feel comfortable when he sniffs her, because she is out of her league and he is just getting started. For once, she wishes she is human so that she doesn't have to speak in the Language of the Dogs, because she barely knows how to say I love you in Japanese, let alone body language._

_The dog doesn't mind her awkward behavior, and it glad that she doesn't know that he's going about this all wrong because he's not sure what to do either._

_They teach each other as they go along – teach each other to dance._

_

* * *

_

Inuyasha has seen them running just beyond the tree line more than once, but doesn't say anything, because there is nothing to say. She isn't Omega, and she isn't a little girl, and he wants to scream every time that she turns in to a wolf when she doesn't absolutely need to – which is every night, now that she has a pack waiting for her to lead.

They all still need her, to help guide them, but she needs the forest and her Dog more than she needs to breath. She doesn't need them, and the knowledge hurts Inuyasha more than he could ever express.

The dog is waiting, closer than ever, and Inuyasha recognizes him but says nothing. Kagome, the wolf, he doesn't even know how to tell them apart anymore, takes an involuntary step forward, already stripping in front of everyone.

Inuyasha grabs her arm as she starts to leave, and asks her not to go, because he thinks that she won't come back this time. She assure him that she's fine, and runs, her body melting and changing as she races towards the dog.

The rain starts falling as her feet hit the ground, but she doesn't feel it as she lets her skirt fall to the ground, grateful for the loose material. She grabs the hem of her shirt and pulls it over her head, baring her naked flesh to the rain as she sprints, a mad dash to her Alpha her God. Her hands are almost paws as she fumbles with her bra, and when she is naked and running she counts backwards from three.

_One comes out as a wolf's howl._

_

* * *

_

_She knows this time it's different because he is tenser, and since he is Alpha is God, she can feel him the same way she came feel the rain on her flesh on her skin. It excites her, and when he approaches her, circling and judging, she tries not to fall to her fours and whimper, because that's not what he wants and she will do anything that he wants. Anything at all._

_He looks to the forest and they run because they both knew that it is time._

_He runs, for the first time, at her flank, nipping and biting at her heels, urging her forward and it makes her want to laugh, but she doesn't have the right vocal chords to do that. She dances just out of his range, and he catches up with her with an easy burst of speed, pushing in to her shoulder and knocking her down._

_She rolls along the forest floor, covered in wet mud but washed by the rain, and crouches and launches and bites and plays, until he has her pinned beneath him and he is thrusting in to her and holding her and worshiping her, in the language of the dogs, because she is Alpha and she is Mate and she is Goddess._

_The wolf and the girl reveal in his administrations, and it is the only dance they dance this night._

_

* * *

_

Kagome wakes up to Sesshoumaru's nose at her belly, his one arm wrapped around her in his sleep. She wonders why he has four legs in the dog's body, and she wonders why he is so small, even if he is larger than her.

She wonders why she loves him.

She is pregnant, the wolf in her knows, and she will have pups in just a few months. She wonders what will happen to them when she changes. Will they become little wolf dogs just like her? Will they be dogs? Will they be wolves? Will they have their momma's eyes? Will they have their daddy's markings?

Will Sesshoumaru love her as much if she looks like a girl instead of a wolf?

Sesshoumaru's breathing thickens, and he wakes up sniffing her.

"You're pregnant." _Are you okay?_

"Yes."_ Of course._

"Are you hungry?" _Should we change? Should we dance?_

"Not particularly." _In the body of the dogs, with the Language of the Dogs?_

"Do you need. . . anything?" _Human._

"I might need. . . something."_ Let's._

**

* * *

  
**


	3. Beauty

* * *

Beauty

* * *

Kagome, who was more wolf than human, howled in agony as she came in to the final stages of her child birth. She was having a litter - even her human half had admitted to that, and the pups were not coming quietly. And Sesshoumaru, the rat fink, had lurked off in to the woods in the body of the silver dog that she had met only months prior to do something or other, leaving her in the care of the not-so capable nurse maid, the head of the servant staff at the citadel, Jaken.

"Um. . . can I get you more water?" At the very least, he was being hospitable.

"Away!" She growled out, fighting the transformation that her body was teetering dangerously on. She didn't know how turning in to the wolf would affect the pups babies young now, but the wolf in her sensed the danger and wanted to change, because the wolf was better at running and only the dog was ever really good at fighting.

"Mistress!" Jaken cried, horror and shock all in his voice at once. "I see it's crown! A lovely, lovely silver pup, just like his father!"

Kagome tried to imagine explaining the pups to her mother, and couldn't think of a logical explanation. She would have asked Sesshoumaru if he was born a dog as well, but he wasn't there (bastard) and she was in too much pain to do any more than howl.

Lifting her nose and pricking her ears, she heard his footsteps outside the room, pacing back and forth, a nervous trait that even the human had picked up from the dog. She could practically hear him whining, and could smell the fresh blood of a kill.

A second pup crowned, a third and a fourth, and by the fifth pup Sesshoumaru was whimpering and Kagome was sighing with relief and an empty belly.

The pups feed hungrily, the four girls and a boy, all silver and marked save one, who looked so much like the wolf that Kagome knew he would be moon called the same as her.


	4. MoonCalled

* * *

**MoonCalled**

* * *

She can't live with_ him_, in the den with their pups, because she can't look at him as a wolf or as a girl without wanting to die. The human side of her had thought that she had left this all behind, the double talk, the lying, the cheating, with Inuyasha, with the humans. When she found _him_. She thought that she had found happily ever after in his fur and in his flesh, and she had thought that she had found bliss in the skins of their puppies, who were teetering more between human and dog and wolf each day.

Happily ever after didn't last as long as she had hoped.

Sesshoumaru entered their room, where they had slept in the body of dogs and humans, and had pups and babies together. Where he had brought another denizen. As a dog or a human, he is still Alpha Mate God, and she is still nothing.

She is always nothing.

The blank look, carefully free of all emotion, only reinforces that.

_I thought we had forever. _The wolf was speaking through the language of the dogs, because Kagome had more pride than that. The wolf just wants to forgive and forget and ignore, because it doesn't matter what he does as long as he still loves them, as a human or a wolf.

_I never promised you forever._ He answers back through his stance, but his eyes are begging, pleading, just the same as the wolf. There is something human in their depths, because the human knows how to beg where the Dog doesn't, but the human won't speak up, won't apologize, won't ask her forgiveness or offer her any more lies.

The human, though, doesn't know how to speak in the Language of the Dogs the same way Kagome does.

She leaves the estate, only taking the single pup that survived the first year – the boy, the black, the moon called wolf – and wishes that things could be different.

Wishing was just another thing that she had thought she had left behind her. The only thing that she knew was gone, no matter how much she wished for it back, was her almost childlike disillusions that things could get better, that nothing was unfixable, that nothing was impossible. She was wrong then, and she wishes that she was wrong now. Because now she knows that while wolves mate for life, dogs know better than that.

_

* * *

The wolf runs alone and as infrequently as possible, because wolves weren't meant to run alone and__Koiishii__, the pup, is too young to run with her yet without being a danger to himself. She misses the feeling of fur against fur, shoulder to shoulder, and wishes that someone, anyone was there to run with her._

_When she reaches the apex of the hill she was running, she sings to the moon. _

_And there is no one to sing back. _

* * *

Koiishii watches Mother Alpha Goddess through eyes that are trying to be human, but failing. She is in the garden – a gift from Father Alpha God – and is tending to flowers that are just going to die soon anyways.

He is nearly ten, nearly old enough to run with mother, and he doesn't remember that he had sisters in a citadel to the land of the West, and he doesn't speak of Father near Mother, and he doesn't tell her that at night, he can scent her tears even from his room, which Mother doesn't allow him to call a den.

_The world doesn't accept wolves, _she explains to him when he is having difficulty deciding whether he is human or wolf. _And the packs won't accept humans. _

But at least the humans wouldn't kill him. They fear the wolves too much, fear the wrath of their lord, who would allow no harm to come to his first mate, the Lady of the Caucasian Mountains.

The wolves, though, would have their heads, because they would think that they were doing the abominations a favor.

Koiishii knows better than to trust anyone other than Mother Alpha Goddess, because Mother did once and know she cries every night.

* * *

On silver paws, a dog the size of a small horse runs silently through the forest on the outskirts of their property, and Mother doesn't turn around, because she doesn't scent any danger, but Koiishiican scent her tears as he remains pressed against the wooden door frame, tiny and insignificant and angry, because Koiishiihates Father. He hates him almost as much as she still loves him.

The wolf has no name, but if she did it would be Kagome, because that is her master. The wolf has never had anyone – save for Alpha God Mate – teach her how to hunt properly, kill alone, and so she is not sure she can teach her pup, because no matter how bright he is, nothing can help the fact that she is incompetent.

_

* * *

She needs help. _

_The larger, brown wolf knows it. _

_He loves her, as he has always loved her, because Kagome has always been destined to be his, even before she was Mooncalled.  
_

_He would never leave her, becaus__e __Kouga__ loved her the same way he loved because she was beautiful and kind, and the Wolf loved her for being the strongest she-wolf in the land and he loved her enough to ignore the fact that she chose a mate and try convince her to not love __Sesshoumaru__Dog any longer. _

_He will come, the wolf promises in the language of the dogs, in the morning when she awakens to train _Koiishii_in the ways of the wolf. _

* * *

Koiishii doesn't like the smell of this man, this wolf, who darkens his Mother's doorway with an easy smile and a streak of gray hair running through dark, dark brown. He smells like Earth, and he smells like wolf – and Mother taught him to always fear other wolves, because they would have your blood.

Mother calls him over and Koiishii fidgets, trying not to call upon his fur to protect himself as he wants to, because Mother has always asked him in that quiet, disappointed voice of hers to remain human at all costs.

Kouga, the Wolf, turns the full force of that smile on his, and Koiishii can feel love radiating off of him, so he smiles too.

Mother suggests a run, and Koiishii is already shifting.

Pack has never been more than two.

_

* * *

In the bodies of the Wolves, __Kagome__ Wolf and _Kouga_ Wolf and _Koiishii _Wolf run, fur against fur, soft pants and softer footsteps, through the territory that is his and his and hers. The hunt, and the smallest black wolf scares away the deer, but that is fine with the Alpha and the Female, because they just wanted him to see what it felt like, the moon in your blood and the blood in your mouth. _

_They feast, on tiny rabbits that the boy wolf manages to catch, and sing for the moon. If the Alpha notices the silver Dog, standing quietly at the tree lines, watching their pack, he says nothing, not even in the Language of the Dogs. _

_He is too frightened of what the female might do. _

* * *

Kagome wakes up in a pile of naked bodies, her son and her friend wrapped in a tangle of limbs beneath her front porch. She doesn't have to remember how she got there, and she doesn't have to worry about what she might have done, because the wolf in her would never do something too terrible in front of Chris, and Kouga would have stopped her from doing anything if she had.

Kouga shifts in his sleep, and inhales the scent of her. She is wrapped in him, in his scent of Earth and Waterfalls, but she can't still catch the scent of the silver dog, and she mourns for her mate even as she lies in the arms of a Man Wolf Alpha who believes in mating for life, and has accepted not only her, but her son from another man as well.

She is happy. As long as she keeps telling herself that, she believes it.

_

* * *

Wolves don't have heartbreak. Wolves don't know how to mourn._

_They don't wear black, and they don't shed tears – they sing songs alone, sing out to the moon, and listen to the silence that echoes. _

_But the Wolf can't mourn properly, because her mate is not dead, and it is not silence that follows her mournful howl, but a response, a plea to come home. _

_The Dog stands behind her, and __Kouga__ Wolf is nowhere to be found. _

_You're still mine. The Dog doesn't ask, because he knows it as well as she does. _

_She whimpers and falls to her belly, falls to her side, because she doesn't have the strength to fight him. She loves him too much. _

_He approaches her, his nose in her muzzle, and can scent the other Wolf on her. Anger doesn't fill the Dog, because Dogs have no sense of monogamy, but something in the human half stirs, an angry jealous thing that doesn't have room to rear its ugly head in the body of the dog, so he transforms, holding the wolf close and yelling at her, demanding her to change back so that they can be human, because for once, humans are the easy ones. Humans can talk. Humans can reason. _

_But in the body of the Wolf, all __Kagome__ knows is the truth in its purest form, unbiased and harsh. _

_And the Dog knows it too. _

* * *

Kouga frowns at her as she digs through the garden, unearthing potatoes to eat in the coming winter months.

"He's been here again."

"Yes." Kagome is telling him in the Language of the Dogs what she can't tell him – won't tell him – in Japanese. That she is confused and hurt and her loyalties – however betrayed they are – don't lie with him.

"It'll be winter soon." Kouga doesn't need to remind her, because winter is the one thing that Kagome and the Wolf truly fear. "You and Koiishii can run with my pack, and we'll take care of you."

"No." She doesn't mince words, because she doesn't speak enough to remember how.

Kouga sighs. "You are forgetting how to speak like a human, Kagome."

Kagome flinches at his honesty, because while the wolf can handle the truth with a quiet acceptance, the human takes even the slightest criticism as a personal attack. She looks at him then, because she can't remember how to say I hate you, and sees him telling her, in the only language she really speaks, that he is worried, and that he loves her, and that he doesn't want her to be alone with Koiishiiand Sesshoumaru throughout the winter.

She smiles, and stands. "I love you." She tells him as a human and in the Language of the Dogs, because it is a saying that is universal.

"You love him more."

Kagome nods, because wolves don't mince words.

_

* * *

The Dog is waiting for the Wolf at the tree line, and when they meet, they size each other up with sniffs and growls._

_In the body of the human, the Wolf would not have hesitated to kill him, so that the female would have been his. But in the body of the Wolf, _Kouga_ recognizes a strong opponent who wants what neither one of them can have. _

_She will never accept you again, the Wolf reminds the Dog as he circles, trying to get around so he can get back to his pack, because one wolf is never as good as Pack. _

_She will. The Dog is determined, and the Dog can't lie in this form. The Language of the Dogs is spoken in body language, and the body of a Dog cannot lie. _

_You will hurt her. _

_Yes. _

_You will have her anyways. _

_Yes. _

_The Wolf is sad, and pities the Girl Wolf Boy Wolf who won't survive the winter without an Alpha. _

"You broke her heart." Kouga tells him, back in the body of the human because the dog can't say these words without howling.

Yes.

It's the only word that the Dog will say.

"Would you have me stand aside, so that you could do it again?"

The tension in the dogs body lessons, fading away in to a loose limbed _no. _

Kouga smiles sadly, and wonders why how he can love Kagome so much that he is willing to let her go as he turns back in to the Wolf.

_Then don't hurt her again._

_

* * *

The first real winter storm is on the night of the full moon, when __Kagome__ and _Koiishii ___ha_ve to become wolf, because the moon calls to them in a way that the Wolves can't ignore. 

_Just like the way the Wolf calls to the Dog. _

_He dances around the Wolf's pack of two, trying to gain entrance, but it is not the Alpha Female Goddess Mate that denies him, but the pup, the whelp, who bares his fangs as though they can fend him off. _

_The Dog wants to attack him, to assert his dominance and take the Wolf as his prize, but _Sesshoumaru_ is no fool and pulls on the Dog's leash, even from within the body. She would never forgive. She would never forget. _

_The Dog listens to his master and whimpers, howls, a pathetic pleading for a second chance. He is not asking the Female, he is asking the pup. _

Koiishii_doesn't understand, so the pup certainly doesn't understand, but Mother Alpha Goddess's body has smiled, and he knows that the Silver Dog, his Father Alpha God, is asking for forgiveness, and asking for her to come with him to be safe, and asking if he can try again. _

_Mother becomes human, as does Father, and__Koiishii__ Wolf hears the words but doesn't understand them in this body._

___But in the language of the Dogs, he is making promises_ that can't be broken, because the language of the Dogs can not lie, and she is saying she accepts. 

_But they both say I love you. _

_

* * *

_

_**A/N: Two more chapters to go. **  
_


	5. Moon Struck

* * *

**MOONSTRUCK**

* * *

Howling. It's the closest thing that they, wolf and dog, have to speaking like their human counterparts. It seems that they have been spending less and less time in those bodies, awkward and naked despite all their clothes, and more time in the body of the dogs – running fur against fur, sliding flesh against flesh.

_And if the Dog stinks of infedility, the Wolf pretends not to notice because she remembers the last time that she mentioned it, that first winter that she almost had to spend alone. She remembers the lonely aching, because wolves aren't meant to run alone, and the empty hollow space in her heart that neither Koiishi nor Kouga could ever properly fill, because it was shaped so very much like Sesshoumaru. _

_The howls of the pack of wolves have the wolf cocking her head to the wind, trying to catch each and every small nuance of the song. She recognizes the leader – it's Kouga, her Kouga, her almost Alpha, and he's saying hello hello hello. I'm back. Did you wait for me? _

_The Dog is listening too, and the ground beneath her paws vibrates viciously when he growls, forbidding her in the language of the dogs from answering him, and the wolf listens to the dog because he is Alpha and she is just his little pet. _

_Besides, Kouga Wolf is the best hunter she has ever known – better, even, than her own Alpha. She knows he knows where she is, knows that he will find her, because no matter who the Alpha is, or who the mate, they are still pack. _

_They were pack even when the Wolf was called Kagome. _

* * *

Kagome stretches out, her naked skin against the fur of Sesshoumaru who hasn't left the body of the dog. She isn't sure what woke her up, or why she woke up in the form of a human, but looking around she realizes that Koiishi is gone, his tracks leading away from the den that they have been living in since the first day of spring, when hunting began to get good again.

She stands, not at all self concious in her nudity, and walks lightly over the moss covered ground, following the path that her son has forged away from the slumbering Sesshoumaru. She knows that if he wakes up, he will find her tracks, no matter how lightly she steps, and if he wants her back for any reason he can find her.

The forest around her is silent, something she would have once thought of as a blessing, later as a warning. But now, she thinks of it as a compliment – she is a predator, a full-grown wolf even when she is human, and the creatures of the forest respect her and give her the space that a hunter of her caliber deserves. She walks, her head a bit higher than usual, naked in the early morning sunshine.

There is a growl, a low vibrating _thrum _that she recognizes as more of a sound of pleasure than a threat, and Kagome slows, not wanting to intrude on whatever party she may be walking in to. This may be her territory, but Koiishi was probably down there taking care of everything, and she doesn't want to ruin whatever delicate understanding he has come to with the other wolves.

She breaks the tree line and gasps when she sees the familiar lines and shapes and furs of her pack, lead by a large, brown wolf with scars covering his body. The body she knows, inside and out.

Still naked, she lurches forward, uncaring of what the other wolves must think of this strange girl wolf throwing her arms around their Alpha, her fingers in his fur, her tear-covered face in his neck. The wolf pants heavily, a dog's laughter, and Kagome giggles when he changes in to the body of a human and his arms wrap around her as well.

"I've missed you." He tells her, and she believes it, because Kouga has spent too much time in the body of thewolf to be able to lie properly, and she has spent too much time being ruled by the moon to be able to tell anymore anyways.

She whimpers against his chest, licking and tasting his collar bone, and is telling him in the language of the dogs that she has missed him more.

They don't bother to argue, and neither notice the white dog at the tree line that Kagome has just broken through, staring down at them with a blank expression, just before he turns to stalk away.

The Dog needs to kill something. Preferably large and with a lot of brown fur.

The wolf doesn't run with her Alpha that night, and he doesn't make her. He doesn't understand the way the wolf works, because he is a dog and he doesn't need pack.

_

* * *

But the wolf does. _

_Flesh flesh flesh fur blood howling. . . it is a jumble a jamboree and she is filled with a joy that she hasn't felt since she first found Sesshoumaru that day with that rabbit, nearly twenty years ago. Time hasn't effected her – a side effect, she assumes, from being a werewolf. The changes in the brown wolf, her almost but not quite Alpha, are minute and easy to overlook to someone who doesn't know him as well as she does – a shoot of silver her, a line that wasn't there then now. Two crows feet, laughter lines that showed up on both the wolf and the man. _

_They give him character. They make her love him. _

_The pack disperses, one by one, until it is only the three of them – the female, the pup that is no longer a pup, and the male that would be Alpha. And even then, the pup knows that he isn't needed, and then it is just the two of them, rolling and singing and reuniting because it has been nearly fifteen years since they have last seen each other. _

_In the light of the full moon – the first of the month, but not the last – the two wolves watch the forest from a high cliff. _

_Are you happy? A thump against the hard rock of the cliff that they have made their own is muffled by the sounds of the night. _

_The wolf can't lie, so she whimpers and lowers her head, begging him not to ask her that. Of course she's happy. She has to be. _

_I would have made you happy. His fur is against hers, and his scent is in her nose. Her not an Alpha, not a mate. But close. _

_And because she can't lie in this body, can't lie in the Language of the Dogs, she settles down in to his embrace, her head over his neck, and they watch the moon rise for hours. _

_I know._

* * *

She wakes up with the scent of earth in her nose, and she smiles, because only Kouga could ever smell like this. It isn't fur in her hands, it's hair, and it isn't a wolf who kisses her senseless, it's a man.

His tongue slides over her skin in the cool morning, and his hands slide under her ass to turn her up in to him. It would hurt, the pounding against the hard rock and the harder wolf, if she isn't use to such abuse from Sesshoumaru. It would hurt, if he isn't so gentle.

But it _does _hurt, because even as he takes her, takes her to new heights that Sesshoumaru can't show her because he could never be a wolf, never understand that she needs the promise of forever, Kouga cries in to her neck and hair, whispering apologies and whimpers and words of love that she knows he means, because it has been nearly thirty years since he first proclaimed her as his and he never once strayed.

Never. Once.

The lines between Alpha and Wolf and Human and _mine _are blurred, and Kagome cradles his head to her chest and accepts him, all of him, in to her, because he is more her mate than Sesshoumaru could ever be. Kouga is more than a mate.

Kouga is _Alpha. _

* * *

The wolf crawls back to the dog on her belly, stinking of Alpha and reeking of infedility, and the dog bares his teeth in a twisted snarl. The wolf whimpers, yipping and screaming, and gives him her belly, pleading and begging for forgiveness as quickly and loudly as she can, and the dog sneers and shimmers in to the body of a man, because he isn't sure what words to use in the language of the dogs.

_Viciously, with a strength that shows his true nature, he picks the wolf up by her scruff and holds her at eye level despite her screaming. _

"_Change!" He commands, and the wolf listens, shimmers between fur and flesh. _

"You smell like the wolf." Sesshoumaru accuses, eyes flashing as Kagome screams, gripping at her own scalp to loosen the hold he has on her hair. "You slept with the wolf."

Kagome can't deny anything, because he is right and she is too busy screaming to defend herself anyway.

"No matter." Sesshoumaru sneers and drops her to the ground. "Since you shall be staying at the citadel with me until your little wolf's pelt is a rug on my floor, I don't have to worry about you sleeping with him again, do I?"

Koiishi finds his mother as a wolf, crumbled in a ball of pathetic fur, whimpering but not crying, because tears don't work in this body.

_

* * *

The pack is merry, celebrating the final mating of their Alpha and their sister, happy at last that their Alpha can smile, even in the body of the wolf, and is playing again, tail wagging and jumping about, not challenging this year's litter, but playing, training, and teasing. _

_That is how the wolf finds them, when he comes to them. _

_He reeks of blood, the blood of their Alpha Sister, and the pack is at arms, hackles raised and ready for battle, and Koiishi wolf leads them, because Father no longer means Alpha, and Mother needs them, because Mother is a wolf and this is her pack. _

_The full moon rises, the second of the month, and they charge the citadel. _

_But The Dog was expecting that. _

* * *

Kagome hears the sound of the dogs fighting, the howls and the snarls and the grunts, before the scent of Kouga's blood ever hits her nose.

She scrambles out of the bed that Sesshoumaru had left her on, the very same bed that she had caught him on with another woman fifteen years ago, and stares out the window that she could have broken out of, but didn't.

Wolf dog, flesh, blood; the pack surrounds the two, wanting to jump in but stopping because it isn't their fight – it's Kouga's.

_Rip tear whimper_. They are fading fast from dog to wolf to man, attacking violently, repeatedly, getting all the soft parts and breaking all the rest. The punch, a swipe of claws and fists, and strike at the same time, sending the other to the ground.

Kagome is glad she isn't down there, because she doesn't know who she would help if she was.

Sesshoumaru rises first, slowly dragging his broken arm with him, his eyes stained a vicious shade of red. Even as Kouga struggles, fumbles, to get up, Sesshoumaru's face in enlongating, and Kagome recognizes the change as a violent one – the full demon, large enough to kill him with a paw; the very same one that had almost killed her when she was fifteen and human and still thought that he was redeemable.

She didn't think.

She leapt.

Sesshoumaru wasn't expecting the attack from the air and wasn't sure who it was, so he swung violently, acid spraying everywhere as his broken arm made a full circle, slashing Kagome across the face. The wound pestered and swelled, leaving her blind in one eye, but she fought on. _Just like Inuyasha. . . _she told herself, because she couldn't stop to think that this was her mate, her alpha, that she was fighting, challenging. _Just like Inuyasha would always attack Kouga and I had to fight for him then too because Kouga is my. . . _

She is on Sesshoumaru's back, her wolf fangs buried deep in his neck, and the scent of his blood her blood their blood permeates the air. She is sure that he doesn't know what he's doing, doesn't know who he's attacking, because as she slips in between forms, pulling the best from the wolf, she doesn't know either.

Her knuckles curl and claws emerge from her knuckles, piercing painfully through the skin as she forces the transformation to stop long enough for her to make a swipe at his neck, the softest spot on his body. He howls viciously, and Kagome knows that if she ever lets go of his neck, she will die.

No matter how much he loved her, or how much he cares, he will kill her anyways. Whether he wants to or not.

The knowledge makes her whimper like the cub she was when he found her, all those years ago, and she wishes that she could go back. . . back to Inuyasha, when things were simple. Back to her own time, where things were normal. Back in to his arms, where she could be safe.

The same arm wraps around her, making a crunching noise as he breaks it even more, and his hand locks loosely around her neck – just enough to release his poison.

Kagome gasps as the poison fills her vision her lungs her world, and Kouga is up and tearing at his arm, trying to rip it off too, but failing. His back legs, now the legs of a wolf, are working over time in Sesshoumaru's stomach, trying in vain to gut him as his teeth tear in to a broken arm.

Sesshoumaru looks up at her, eyes clouded, and Kagome smiles at him, because there is something in them, something human, and for a moment, Kagome is back, and the wolf and the dog are running, fur against fur, shoulder to shoulder, and sharing in the hunt and food and song, dancing their awkward step and whispering sweet nothings in the Language of the Dogs.

She is lying limp on the ground, Sesshoumaru next to her, Kouga standing victorious but still alone.

Her breath comes out as heavy pants, and she can't feel anything to move it. But she has a smile on her face, because she can see through the eye that isn't blinded that she is touching Sesshoumaru's broken, bloody arm, even if she can't feel it, and he is smiling too.

"I. . . _love. . . _you. . ." She is panting harder now, because the words take an effort to get out.

"Kagome!" Kouga cries, and tries to gather her up in his arms, but is beaten to it by Sesshoumaru, who is rocking her and holding her and sobbing.

"I'm sorry. . ." he whispers, eyes unfocused, his body confused as to whether it was a dog or a man or something else entirely. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."

She is lying over his shoulder, her eyes focused on Koiishi's shivering, uninjured body, dreaming of the past. Her lungs are working overtime, and her limps are numb and limp, so it is easy to pretend that they are running again, under the light of the full moon.

When she dies, her face is turned up to it, a smile breaking through the blood and the bruises and the pus.

Kouga doesn't demand revenge. He walks away, slowly, letting the rest of his pack be lead by Koiishi. "You killed her." Kouga whispered in shock. "She was. . . she. . ."

Sesshoumaru doesn't even hear him, just like he doesn't hear the chorus of the wolves, crying out for the spirit of the Girl who wasn't a wolf, but was close.

Just like he can't hear his own wracked sobs join in their song.

* * *

He doesn't bury her, nor would he let her be burned. Wrapping her body in clothe of silk and lace, he lays her gently at the bottom of the bone eater's well, holding back tears that are unbecoming for him. Trying to stop the mantra that rang in his head.

It was me it was me I killed Kagome. . .

Koiishi watches his father, and can't forgive him but can accept that it's simply the way things are. "She'll be alive, in five hundred years." He tells his father, trying to ignore the way Mother Alpha Goddess's body is limp and cold, curled and half covered in matted, dull fur.

"I will be there."

If Kagome was alive, she would have laughed, and told him that he didn't promise forever.

Sesshoumaru would have told her that he changed his mind.

* * *

A/N: One more chapter to go...


	6. Full Circle

**

* * *

FULL CIRCLE**

**

* * *

**

Foot over padded foot, furry paw over paw, the white dog darted through the city streets as though he was darting through tree and over rocks. An occasional light would catch, reflect, off of his pelt, giving him the appearance of a shooting star that didn't know where to land.

_He is coming for her. _

_

* * *

In a hospital, miles away, a child with a crown of black hair that is oh so very human, crowns and cries as she is born of her mother, but not yet born of the moon. _

_She will be. _

_A large, black wolf growls at him, and the dog is shocked at himself for not realizing he was there before. The wolf's fangs are shining white in the moonlight, whiter even than the dog's pale fur, and his lips are wracked up in a snarl. _

_You dare… he is challenging in the language of the dogs, because five hundred years has given Koiishi wolf the strength to surpass his own father, who not only has grown decrepit in his old age but is no longer called Alpha or God or Mate, because he has lost. The Dog is nothing but an exiled prince. _

_The Dog is too far gone, too lonely, to do anything more than whimper and lower his ears. Please, he is saying, just let me see her. Just once more. . . that's all. _

_The wolf sniffs, and if they were human he would have spit. Instead, he marks the line that the Dog isn't allowed to cross. _

_You had your second chance. _

_The Dog whimpers, because he knows it's true. A voice in the back of his head, the only part of Sesshoumaru that still remains, reminds him that it is his own fault, and that he deserves nothing more than what Koiishi Wolf is giving him. He deserves, as a matter of fact, less. _

_You killed her. _

_Neither one is sure who said it, so the Wolf and the Dog accept it as the truth. _

_And as a frail baby girl screams, the Dog howls. And the Wolf just laughs at him. _

* * *

She is five and playing in the terrace of the shrine, bouncing that pretty red ball of hers up and down, giggling as she did so. It is tantalizing, and the Dog punishes himself by reminding himself that she could have been his, was his, would be his, if he hadn't gone so mad…

_She looks up, smiling, and says something that he doesn't understand because she doesn't yet know how to speak in the language of the dogs. Her voice, though, is calm and soothing, so he thumps his tail, a muffled sound against the pavement, and with his face on his front paws, scuttles forward slowly as to not scare her. _

_His fear of hearing her screams are proven moot as she giggles, clapping her hands and singing something in a language he used to understand but stopped bothering to speak. _

"Fluffy!" _She exclaims just before she presses her face in to his throat, her tiny arms around his shoulders. He doesn't know what she said, but feels an unreasonable tinge of annoyance. Not that it bothers him or anything. He's _feeling _again. _

"Kagome!" _The Mother who isn't the Moon calls out to her from the door. _"Get away from that dog!" _She runs forward, shooing the white dog as she comes, trying to save her daughter from a dog that killed her. She doesn't even know it. _

"Probably got fleas…" _The Mother who isn't the Moon mutters as she ushers Alpha Goddess Mate inside, and locks the door with the finality of a click. _

_This time he _knows _he should feel insulted, but isn't sure why. _

* * *

"Idiot." Koiishi is human, his hair pulled back neatly and his face carefully shaved. It would be easy, they know, the two who are called by the moon, to forget that they were once human and turn in to the animal that claws at the back of their throats, and shaving is just one way to control it. It distinguishes between Man and Wolf, and Koiishi doesn't let himself be ruled by his weaker emotions, because that would be to lose control and harm someone, just like Father who isn't Alpha or God or Mate did to Mother.

Just like Father who is lying underneath the porch of Mother, thin and starved and still in the body of the dog because the world moved on, but he didn't. Koiishi reaches a hand underneath, trying to grab at the scruff of his neck, and the White Dog growls, threatening to attack. His teeth sink deep in to Koiishi's flesh, but Koiishi doesn't whimper, doesn't yip, because Sesshoumaru is just being a child.

"Is something wrong?" Kagome is twelve and wearing shorts, her hair held high in pig tails as she toys with an ice cream cone between her tongue and her teeth.

"It's just a dumb dog…" Koiishi responds, trying his hardest not to make eye contact with his mother.

"Oh, him. He's harmless, really." She giggles, and leans forward to share her secret. "Sometimes I sneak food out to him, because he's a good dog!"

Sesshoumaru doesn't release his hold on Koiishi, but his tail swishes across the gravel, a sound unmistakable to Koiishi. It is nearly enough to convince him to let him stay. . .

Until he remembers his Mother's crumbled body, torn and not human, not wolf, but something gruesome and hideous and so _in between _that it was a breed that belonged just to her. Her broken limps, her crushed skull, and the evening by the well that Koiishi said goodbye to Sesshoumaru for what he hoped would be the last time.

Koiishi jerks his hand, pulling Sesshoumaru with it, and holds him high in the air by the scruff of his neck. Sesshoumaru yips, pup-like and pleading, and Koiishi holds him at eye level.

_"Change!" And Mother did as he commanded, shimmering between Wolf and Woman, screaming in agony as she tried to adjust to the hold that worked on dogs, but not on humans._

Koiishi sneered, and nearly demands the same. "It's just a dumb dog…"

Sesshoumaru whimpers, because he agrees wholeheartedly.

* * *

The White Dog was there, in the background, held in place by Koiishi the morning of her fifteenth birthday, when she falls down the well, just like Alice falling down the bunny hole, just like children tripping down the stairs.

_The Dog tries to stop her, to hold her to him, to change and fix his mistakes, but the wolf won't let him. _

_This is all your fault. The Wolf is telling the Dog over and over again. Now you watch. Watch what you did. _

_The Dog wishes that he is human so that he can scream. _

* * *

She crawls back through the well for the second to last time. Only the last time she comes back, she won't be moving or breathing or his, and it's all his fault it's his fault his fault.

The wolf is by his side, solemn, and Sesshoumaru knows what he is about to do. Realizes the mistakes that he made root from this one, this moment right here and now, and Sesshoumaru knows that his son…

_Don't_.

It is a plea, a whimper, a beg. Please.

The wolf looks at him, sneering. _She asked you the same thing._

Then the wolf is darting forward, snarling and biting and ripping her humanity away, and leaving something canine and foreign in it's place. And even that, Sesshoumaru knows, will only last for a little while before he tears even that away and leaves her with nothing at all.

Steady, solemn, Sesshoumaru watches as his son attacks his Mate, and knows that this is the way it has to be.

* * *

Souta is laughing, more stumbling than running through the lightly planted wood on the property of their shrine, when he finds the dog. White and dangerously thin, he approaches him, and runs a hand over a washboard rib cage.

"Souta?" His mother calls out to him, even though she is looking at the well, waiting for a daughter that will only return to her as a corpse.

"Mom!" Souta cries back, not taking his gaze off the dog. "I found a dead dog!"

Sesshoumaru will return to her as a corpse too. . .

* * *

Spirits don't move the same as the living. They aren't particularly malicious, and they see things for they way they were and the way they are.

_I love you,_ one form says to another, to all others, and embraces it in to itself. Sesshoumaru eases out of the body of the dead and in to the body of something greater. He eases his way in to the comforting embrace of something that isn't Kagome, but is.

_I know._


End file.
